


i would do anything for love, but i won't do that

by merlypops



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi
Genre: Absent Parents, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, First Kiss, Jedi, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren Redemption, Kylo is hurting so much and Rey just wants to help him, Love, Redemption, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo - Freeform, SPOILERS FOR THE LAST JEDI, Sad Kylo Ren, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 16:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13035366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlypops/pseuds/merlypops
Summary: “Forget Light and Dark, Ben,” Rey whispered and hearing his name from her lips didn’t blister his heart like hearing his father speak it did. With her - as with so many other things - everything felt different... calmer...better. “Just beyou... Ben Solo... with me.” She reached for him and her expression was sure. “Joinme, Ben.”Kylo realises just how far he would go to keep Rey beside him.Based on "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" by Meat Loaf.





	i would do anything for love, but i won't do that

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is my first Star Wars fic so please be gentle with me!  
> I watched Star Wars: The Last Jedi today and I am in so much soul-destroying pain right now that I needed to write something to get it all out. This story has HUGE spoilers (obviously) but it also refused to follow my plan so this came as a bit of a surprise.  
> I hope you'll enjoy it!

There was so much pain in her.

So much grief and loss… but desperation most of all. He could feel it in her, rising like lava behind her panicked eyes as the ship rumbled beneath their feet as the artillery tore towards the rebel fighters. The light in her face was dimmed with exhaustion and something that might have been love.

His own heart ached to watch her; to see the hopeless _hope_ she battled with even now. He knew she knew the answer to the questions she’d always harboured for her mysteriously absent parents; saw it in the tears welling in her beautiful eyes now and the sudden slackness of her jaw as she seemed to weaken when something inside her crumbled like a landslide.

She slumped a little and Kylo’s hand twitched reflexively at his side as he tightened his fist in the black leather gloves he had donned. The scar on his face burnt dully but he was almost glad of it as he took a measured step closer through the flames, stepping past the bodies littering the ground of the soldiers they had disposed of together. The pain lancing across his cheek reminded him of Rey and that, in turn, reminded him of something more precious than anything else in the galaxy:

He was not alone.

He was not alone and he never would be again; not while Rey still walked and breathed, and _lived_.

He wished she still didn’t look so lost; so helpless and vulnerable. It softened her features, made her look younger and more unhappy as she wrapped her arms around herself, and he knew she was still thinking of her parents… still wishing for things she could never have.

Maybe that was why Kylo spoke then, when perhaps it might have been wiser to stay silent.

He just didn’t want her to _hurt_ anymore. Even anger would be better than this, because anger was hot and bright, and _alive_. When Rey was hurting, she withered before his dark eyes.

“They were filthy junk traders who sold you off for drinking money,” Kylo said and his voice was softer than it had been for a very long time… softer than Rey’s hand and the rosy curve of her cheek… softer than his mother’s palm on his shoulder what felt like a million years ago.

“They’re dead in a paupers’ grave in the Jakku desert,” Kylo said gently, so desperate for her to believe him and finally _let go_... so desperate for **Rey**. “You have no place in this story,” he said but the words were harder to speak past the lump rising in his throat as a soft pained sound escaped her. “You come from nothing.”

She shook her head weakly but the resignation was almost as thick as the blood spreading across the floor around them from the crumpled bodies littered amongst the flames. She wavered and Kylo’s heart raced in his chest as he finally came to a stop in front of her, almost within arm’s reach.

“You come from nothing. _You_ are nothing… but not to me.”

Kylo prayed she didn’t see the tears in his eyes or the way he squared his jaw to fight valiantly against the sob that wanted to escape him. He felt her pain like a physical blow and the affection he felt for her in that moment scared him.

He thought she might be able to see it; might be able to tell his racing heart was making him dizzy as he reached for her, his fingers flexing inside the gloves, the scar on his cheek reminding him she existed even when she was far, far away from him.

Kylo hoped she never went so far again.

“Join me,” he said, pleading now as his lip quivered and his heart panged in his chest. “ _Please_.”

Her eyes widened with dazed surprise as the tears slipped down her cheek more heavily but she hadn’t recoiled in disgust and, for the first time, Kylo dared to let himself… _hope_.

His father would be so proud and, as the poisonous thought made itself apparently, Kylo’s knees almost gave way beneath him at the sudden conflicting pain burning through him.

Rey’s cool fingers wrapping around his hand brought him back to himself.

“Ben,” she breathed, drawing him closer as her other hand slipped to cradle his ruined cheek. She brushed her fingertips across the puckered scar and Kylo’s breath tore out of him shakily as he closed his eyes, his lashes spiky with tears. “Ben, you know I can’t.”

His forehead fell to rest on her narrow shoulder and her hand slipped to card through his dark hair, gently easing out the tangles as a broken sob ripped out of him. He could hear Rey crying too, her words choked with it as she brushed her lips fleetingly over his forehead.

“Rey,” he whispered mindlessly, his tears burning his face as he pressed it into her neck, trying to hide from… himself? His guilt? The crushing weight of the First Order?

“Ben,” Rey repeated, drawing back a little so that she could cup his face carefully in her shaking hands. She thumbed the tears away and he surprised himself when he realised he didn’t feel the urge to destroy something; to break and snap and crush until there was nothing left. Now he only felt calm, even despite the pain flooding through him in a torrent.

Even when she was denying him of the one thing he believed he truly wanted, he still only felt balanced and steady. She was his rock in a storm, his anchor, the Force guiding him wherever he needed to be.

“You’re not alone,” Rey said gently, wiping her eyes fiercely with the back of her hand for a moment as a watery smile touched her lips. The ship was shaking harder now - taking return fire perhaps? - and Kylo tasted Rey’s determination in the air between them, so tangible and strong that he felt like he was drowning in her certainty for a moment, at least until it abated a little as she stroked his bottom lip with the pad of her thumb.

“Please don’t cry,” she murmured. “You have me and I have you. We have each other.”

“No matter what?” he asked and the croak of his voice sent his pale cheeks flaming with blood as his own desperation threatened to overwhelm him with searing intensity.

“I believe the Force will always bring us together,” she said solemnly. “But that doesn’t mean I can condone _any_ of this.” She gestured around the room wildly as she spoke, her hand shaking at the flickering flames and the broken bodies in their pools of blood. Kylo’s body shook with the effort of staying upright as he took in the carnage; as he remembered the destruction he rained down so constantly in his useless effort to finally feel _peace_... but there was just one thing in the galaxy who could gift him with that.

Only Rey.

When she spoke next, he felt her words settling inside him somewhere deep enough that he would never, ever be able to rid himself of them.

“Forget Light and Dark, Ben,” Rey whispered and hearing his name from her lips didn’t blister his heart like hearing his father speak it did. With her - as with so many other things - everything felt different... calmer... _better_. “Just be **_you_...** Ben Solo... with me.” She reached for him and her expression was sure. “Join _me_ , Ben.”

He trembled when he reached to place his hand in Rey’s.

The alarms blaring shipwide seemed to be coming from far, far away as the hope in her eyes engulfed him like sunlight. Her lips brushed against his - delicate as a butterfly’s wing - but her fingers were entwined with his more tightly than they had ever been as she tugged him towards the door behind them.

He tightened their grip and Rey squeezed his shaking hand comfortingly as their feet pounded across the floor, slippery with blood and scattered with debris.

For the first time in well over a decade, his heart beat without fear in his chest.

Ben felt whole with Rey beside him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> I can't wait to hear what you thought <3


End file.
